Tag Archives: Weight loss

06

Feb. ’14

What kind of water is best for weight loss?

drink-waterThe wet kind!

Most things you consume in a liquid state will keep you hydrated; some just have extra benefits or extra pitfalls that come with them. For example, juice has all of the vitamins and sugar found in fruit, but none of the fiber and mandatory chewing that slows down calorie consumption.

So here’s a quick 4 question quiz to see if you know how to keep your body hydrated and on the track to good health! I’ve included a few hints to help you along the way.

gila-monster-hissing

1. What percent of your body is water?
a. 30% like a gila monster after a day in the desert sun.
b. 60% One man actually lost 25 pounds of water weight in 48 hours to “prove” that scales are useless. That’s approaching gila monster humidity and he was promptly rushed off to get an IV drip.
c. 90% like a jellyfish.

water glasses2. How many ounces (total) of water should you drink each day?
a. 8 ounces – your blindingly bright yellow or orange colored pee should tell you that this is not the correct answer. Bad blog reader, bad! Most water bottles aren’t even that small.
b. 8 8 ounce glasses – correct, but don’t be lazy, do the math.
c. 64 ounces. Correct! (8oz x 8 glasses = 64) That’s 8 cups of water, or 4 pints, or 2 quarts or one half gallon, or three hours sipping at a water fountain. (I’m glad fountains exist, but when you’re thirsty, they’re maddeningly slow to drink from. Some sort of wall hose would be preferable.)

coffee3. Which of the following beverages count towards your 64 ounces?
a. Coffee and tea. It’s water with natural brown food coloring. Don’t believe me? Check out this myth-busting research.
b. Juice and lemonade. It’s still mostly water, just watch the sugar intake. Sip and savor, but save the chugging for water.
c. Soda. Nope, not even close. It’s liquid, but your body has to use all the water it contains to flush out all of the chemicals it also contains, so you end up not hydrated.

4. Which of the following are benefits of drinking enough water?
a. Flushing out toxins. This is obviously good, right? No commentary needed? Why am I still typing?
b. Energized muscles. Not feeling up for a little exercise? Drink some water; dehydration causes muscle fatigue.
c. Hydrated skin that looks good. Eat your heart out, Maybelline! Moisturizers create a barrier that helps keep moisture in your skin, but if the moisture isn’t coming from the inside out, that barrier is ineffective.

Two footnotes:
drop1. If you need an answer key, leave a comment and I’ll contact you; I have some magic beans I’d like to sell you.
2. Gila monsters have more like 70% water in their bodies, not 30%, but they LOOK so darn dry! And in the dry months they survive by not urinating for months. Gross, but so very cool too. The point is, you are not a gila monster. Raise your glass and drink up! A toast to your health!

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

 

Images are from:

http://www.volusia.org/services/public-works/water-resources-and-utilities/

https://beccasbyline.wordpress.com/2011/09/

http://diabetesdailypost.com/learn-why-you-need-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-per-day/

http://savenaturesavehuman.blogspot.com/2012/05/gila-monster.html

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/coffee-and-hormones

Posted by . Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

21

Jan. ’14

Yoda’s Yoga

images (5)“Do or do not. There is no try.”

Oh, if only I had a little green linguistically challenged trainer who could hang on my back, spouting guru encouragement and inspiring me by lifting spaceships out of ponds. Instead, I have four little beige people I must dress and cobble and herd out the door like protesting cats. I feel like Luke when he sizes up that spaceship: I don’t think I’m strong enough. herdingcatsAnd why am I herding booger spurting beige cats wearing Spiderman masks into the spaceship stuck in a pond? To exercise. Be it rounding the block or driving to the YMCA, I am determined to burn a few hundred calories.

But I must be my own Yoda. “Use the Force, Katie.”

It’s great advice, actually: Do or do not, there is no try. Don’t think about it, just do it. When I think about going to the Y, I often talk myself out of it. I’ll go later. I’ll do some crunches while I watch TV tonight, I promise. It might rain. It’s raining. It did rain. Ooo, my weekly StumbleUpon email just arrived. I should probably clean instead. Pitiful.

There was one day just before Christmas when I finally tired of the filth that was my house (why clean in December when you can shop for presents?) and I cleaned for 3½ hours straight. That was a good workout. “The Force is strong in this one.” Unfortunately, that kind of cleaning bug only hits me on a solstice.

bigyoda2So I try not to think about it. Just do it. (Yes, Nike, I will accept sneakers as payment.) There is always something else I could do with that time, but nothing else I should do. And all of the stuff that needs to get done still gets done because exercise increases my energy. It’s kind of magical. Like Yoda.

“He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:29-31

He is the REAL Force.

 

Images are from:

http://www.starwarsreport.com/tag/yoda/

http://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.com/2012/10/classic-image-wisdom-never-dies.html

http://imsdemons.pvp101.net/2013/12/guide-herding-cats-or-brief-guide-to.html

Posted by . Categories: SEX: Sleep and Exercise. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

18

Jan. ’14

10 Amazing Ways To Stop Overeating

This is a great video by Quirkology about ways to “trick” yourself into eating less.  It’s also a great excuse to go buy little red plates and decorative mirrors for your kitchen!  It’s science, Honey, I have to go shopping.

Just click on the link below.

10 Amazing Ways To Stop Overeating

Posted by . Categories: Interesting Tidbits, TWO FISTED EATING: Portion Control and Enjoyment. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a comment

08

Jan. ’14

My Yellow Brick Resolution

yellow-brick-roadOur society has things backwards.  The day that we’re expected to begin a self-improving, habit-breaking, life transforming New Year’s Resolution is the day after we stay up way too late and arrives at the end of one of the busiest and most calorie rich seasons of the year.  If you searched the calendar for the one day that we are the most physically, emotionally, and motivationally drained, it would be New Year’s Day.  It’s like asking me to start a low carb diet the day I tour a bakery. Not going to happen!  

If one week into the New Year you’ve already lost your way, I invite you to travel with me down the Healthy Body Yellow Brick Road.  We’re going to begin our year the same way we began with this blog: with SEX every day.   If God has blessed you with enough mc² to take this suggestion literally, go for it!  For the rest of us, remember that SEX reminds us to get plenty of Sleep and EXercise. (To read the first post of this blog and learn how to use your spouse to get yourself to bed on time, click HERE.)

This week we’re going to focus on sleep.

Ready, Dorothy?  Let’s collect our traveling companions and get back to Kansas!

imagesHey Scarecrow!  Did you know that sleep cleans your brain?  When you sleep, your brain cells contract, leaving extra space between them.  Spinocerebral fluid then flows around the cells, flushing away the proteins that build up there when you’re awake.  Protein build up has been linked to alzheimers and dementia.  When you get enough sleep (7-8 hours per night), your brain gets detoxed.  I got so little sleep in college, I think I built protein palaces. http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/october2013/10282013clear.htm Another new study just announced that missed sleep results in an increase in certain chemicals in the brain – the same type of chemical increases that occur after a head injury.  http://msnvideo.msn.com/?channelindex=10&from=en-us_msnhpvidmod#/video/7d94de3e-03fa-4090-aa8a-331b3c311c1e

Annex - Garland, Judy (Wizard of Oz, The)_01“If I only had a heart” and if I only slept enough to keep it strong!  Tin Man, a new study came out this past summer which links sleep and heart health.  There are four factors that significantly affect one’s risk for cardiovascular disease: smoking, diet, exercise, and alcohol. New research has added a fifth: sleep.  If you don’t get enough sleep, it adversely affects your heart just as much as smoking does.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2353692/Lack-sleep-increases-risk-heart-disease-SMOKING.html

images (3)Lion, your courage to face the day and change your bad habits into good ones is also linked to sleep.  Mood is affected by sleep.  If you or someone you know has worked night shift, you don’t need science to tell you that lack of sleep makes a person more irritable, less patient, and well, not someone you want to be caged up with.  Some studies have linked sleep deprivation with depression and other studies show that lack of sleep causes your amygdala (the part of the brain associated with negative emotions) to act up more and be less connected to the part of your brain that regulates emotion (and keeps the crazies in check).  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-you-and-me/201308/all-night-the-effects-sleep-loss-mood

images (2)images (1)Last, but not least, we can’t forget the Good Witch Leptin and the Wicked Witch Ghrelin.  Well rested bodies produce lots of the hormone leptin which tells your body to stop eating.  Sleep starved bodies produce more ghrelin hormones which tell your body to eat more.  So in this metaphor, the Munchkins actually work for Wicked Witch Ghrelin.  (Dunkin Donut holes, get it?)  Come on, Lollipop Guild, you’re not helping us get to Kansas. http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/lack-of-sleep-weight-gain

Join me in celebrating the New Year by resolving to get more sleep: rest for our brain, our heart, and our mood.  On our Yellow Brick Road, the best thing Dorothy can do is lie down in the field of poppies and take a nap.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. Psalm 23:2,3a
images (4)

 

Images are from:

http://www.doctormacro.com/movie%20summaries/w/wizard%20of%20oz,%20the%20(1939).htm

http://www.fanpop.com

http://www.hrcsuite.com/strategic-planning/manufacturing-metrics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Witch_of_the_West

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm846889984/ch0004330

http://www.queen-of-theme-party-games.com/wizard-of-oz-games.html#axzz39fndneOL

 

Posted by . Categories: SEX: Sleep and Exercise. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment

26

Nov. ’13

Jurkey and Junesgiving

One time per year; that’s it.  Pecan pie, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and turkey are limited to one day out of three hundred and sixty five, but I say “NO MORE!”  (Or should that be “Please, sir, I want some more.”?)

June TurkeyI’m starting a new holiday: June Turkey.  (Jurkey, perhaps? Or Junesgiving?)  Thanksgiving dinner is so good, we need to eat it more often, and eating it in the summer might be even better than November.  Here are the benefits as I see it:

1. It never hurts to be thankful.  The USofA would be a better place if we gave thanks more and ate less.  Chew on this for a moment: If your family income is $10,000 a year, you are wealthier than 84 percent of the world.  We’re struggling to eat healthier in the face of an overabundance of junk food; much of the world is struggling to eat enough in the face of an under-abundance of any food.

Maybe Gratitudiet should be a new diet craze: write a thank you note to a farmer, grocer, or God before you eat…EVERY time before you eat.  The eventual hand cramps will limit our ability to use forks or spoons and slow down our caloric intake.

2. No more pressure to stuff yourself silly on Thanksgiving Day.  You only have to wait 182.5 days for the next turkey instead of 364; ie the world will not end if you don’t eat another mountain of mashed potatoes.

It’s actually a great idea to fill a second plate, just make sure you save it to eat later (hours later, people, not minutes!).  Sometimes knowing I get to repeat a great meal helps remove the temptation to go for seconds NOW.

P10103703. Better veggies.  Let’s face it, summer is the time of year when vegetables are growing, so it’s easier to find them fresh and cheap.  Instead of green bean casserole, you can have fresh green beans.  Peel and cook some turnips and mix them with the potatoes for some extra nutritious mashed tubers.  Take the recipe for sweet potatoes and cut the “good stuff” (butter, sugar, marshmallows) in half, or try roasting them with olive oil and cinnamon.  The more vegetables you add to your meal, and the closer to “naked” you eat them, the more you can fill your plate, fill your belly, and stay on track for a healthy lifestyle.

4. Practice, practice, practice.  Ladies of my generation, if your mother, grandmother, or mother-in-law usually cooks the turkey, then you probably have no clue how that sucker gets from fridge to table.  But your day is coming!  Granted, by the time we’ve become the matriarchs, we’ll probably be able to click on a turkey on Amazon and it’ll be shipped directly to our oven fully cooked, but it’s still a good skill to have so you can brag to your grandchildren that you cooked your own bird back in the “good old days”.

I used to think it was really complicated, but one day I saw turkey on sale for 69 cents a pound and thought “It’s just a giant chicken!  At 69 cents per pound, I’m willing to take a risk and try it.”  I discovered it’s pretty easy.  The hardest part is manhandling the slippery carcass.  Rinsing the bird is like giving a one year old a bath in the sink, just less messy.

Turkey KitchenHere’s what you do: buy a turkey now while they’re on sale.  If you’re an awful cook, buy two: you need the practice.  Put it in the freezer.  (I once forgot about a turkey in the back of my freezer for a year and it cooked up just fine.  Make sure you grease the chain saw with olive oil before you slice it.  Just kidding :))  Check the weather in June and pick the hottest, most humid day you can for your Junesgiving; you’re not going outside anyway, so you may as well make the house smell good!

There are two traditional Thanksgiving dishes that I haven’t found a healthy “fix” for: stuffing and pecan pie.   I made a sweet potato-pecan pie last year that my husband loved because it wasn’t sickly sweet, but I can’t call it healthy.  And stuffing is stale bread baked in turkey grease; if you remove the grease part, you’re left with bad croutons instead of turkey-belly-ambrosia.  I think this calls for some experimentation!  What if it were zucchini cubes baked in turkey grease?

That’s what’s so great about Jurkey!  You can try new ways to eat great food without 17 relatives critiquing your stale bread and turkey grease!  I’ll let you know how the zucchini stuffing turns out.  I’m off to buy my June Turkey; it’s on sale today for sixty EIGHT cents a pound.

“I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.” Psalm 69:30

Posted by . Categories: Interesting Tidbits, TWO FISTED EATING: Portion Control and Enjoyment. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

12

Nov. ’13

Be A Better Loser

I’m a pretty good loser, but with help, I’m a great loser.  Help can be an app, a website, a book, an accountability partner, a support group, or a lock on the fridge.  For me, it was Loseit.com.

2013 Summer 605When I first started losing weight, I didn’t want help.  Don’t give me a list of rules.  Don’t tell me any foods are off limits.  Call it stubbornness, call it arrogance, call it refusal to let go of a baking addiction…the point is, I wanted to do it on my own terms.  Also, on my bad days, I did NOT want to have to tell someone how bad I was.  My shame is my own, thank you very much!  But after four months of losing weight and two months of plateau-ing, (P.L.A.T.E.A.U. stands for Please Let my Attempts Take Effect…ARGH!! U’ve got to be kidding me!  Really body?  All this effort and the scale doesn’t budge?) I was ready for help.

P1010980Loseit.com is a free, easy, online calorie diary of sorts.  You know it’s quick and easy if a stay at home mom with four computer-crazy little kids can use it.  When I sit down at the computer, I have about 70 seconds before the boys swarm all over me, asking for a turn.  One of them will actually climb up the back of my chair and onto my shoulders.

Anyways, you create an account, telling them how much you weigh now, your weight goal, and if you want to lose 1, 1.5, or 2 pounds a week.  I love the realism here; notice that you may not choose to lose 20 pounds per week.  They calculate how many calories you should eat each day to reach your goal.  You type in a food and it tells you how many calories that food has and adds it all up for you.  So easy!  No math skills needed!

P1010979You can also create custom foods (such as a favorite homemade soup recipe or how you take your coffee) and name them.  Whole meals can be repeated with one click; useful if you eat the same thing for breakfast five days a week (like coffee, juice, and oatmeal), and previous meals are automatically saved and available to add; useful if you have leftovers for lunch the next day or you cook similar dinners every week.

You can also enter any exercise you do which ADDS calories to your daily allotment.  They even include housework and gardening.  If there’s chocolate in the house, my home gets a good cleaning!

Loseit even has a community feature where your friends and family can join as friends and see one another’s progress and leave comments.  It’s a great way to stay encouraged and be held accountable….as much as you want to be!

P1010981By the way, I am not being paid to talk about Loseit.  I wish I were.  If anyone would like to pay me, I would enjoy that.

So, how does this help?

Imagine that you’ve lost fifteen pounds and need a new outfit to go out with your girlfriends.  You have $80 to spend on clothes and your favorite brand of jeans is on sale for $40. At the store you find a fabulous shirt that you love, but it costs $60.  If you buy the shirt, you can’t buy the jeans.  So, you have to choose: marvelous shirt and mediocre jeans OR spectacular jeans and second rate shirt.  No, put those credit cards back in your pocket!  In this metaphor, debt turns into love handles!

That’s what Loseit does for me; it helps me budget.  I want to eat marvelous everything, all day, all the time.  But that’s how I gained my weight in the first place.  So, a budget example: After entering my breakfast, lunch, dinner, and exercise, I have a whopping 150 calories left for snack time.  I want to have a brownie and a cappuccino, but I can’t do that and stay within my calorie budget, so I have to choose: a brownie and tea OR carrots and cappuccino.

Not so bad, is it?1

Loseit has shown me where my calorie bombs were hiding; those foods that seemed innocent, but in reality have a lot higher count than I imagined.  Muffins, for example, and spaghetti.  The first time I entered my breakfast of muffins into Loseit, I cringed: the muffins used up almost half of my allotment that day!  Score one for the learning curve.  And over time I’ve learned which foods I can fill my plate with and still have room for treats.  (Vegetables!  Not surprised?  What, have you been reading my blog or something?)

Loseit is not the only website out there, but it’s the one I know.  The point is, at some point most of us will need some help, be it encouragement, accountability, or a dose of reality.  So, when you’re ready, don’t be afraid to get help!

“Note this: Wicked men trust themselves alone…and fail; but the righteous man trusts in me, and lives!” Habakkuk 2:4

Posted by . Categories: Putting It All Together. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

28

Oct. ’13

Halloween Battle Plan

2013 october 013Do you have your battle plan draw up yet?  Halloween is almost upon us, and even if you don’t participate in the festivities, chances are good that your home will be awash in high fructose corn syrup and yellow dye #5.  If you prepare your mind ahead of time, you can avoid that fistful of wrappers “ARGH! What have I done?!” moment.

Here are a few tactics you can try:

1. Buy candy only at the last minute.  Who are you kidding?  How many times have you purchased your Halloween candy at the end of September and had any left on the 31st?  You end up buying a replacement bag on the 29th  anyway, so skip the 15,000 calorie bag of temptation until you absolutely can’t avoid it.  (40oz bag of assorted non-chocolate candy = approximately 15,000 calories = approximately 4.3 pounds of weight gain.  How much in chocolate candy?  I was too afraid to look!)  The stores will not run out of candy.  They will run out of bread and milk before they run out of candy.  They may even have it on sale.

2. Donate extra candy to charity.  Samaritan’s Purse runs Operation Christmas Child where volunteers pack shoe boxes with toys, hygiene items, clothes, and/or school supplies and give them away to poor children around the world, many of whom have never received a Christmas gift before.  The collection week for this enterprise is, conveniently, the second week of November – ie, AFTER Halloween.  If you don’t want your family to eat that entire bucket full of sweets, take the extra goodies to one of the drop off locations.  They’ll be happy to portion the candy into little baggies to add to the shoeboxes.  (They do not accept chocolate; it tends to melt on the way to the Equator.)

P10106823. Hide under the bed.  Or in a closet.  For the month of October.  Maybe December too.

4. Fill a bowl.  Every time you run errands, fill one pocket with candy.  Many offices have a bowl of candy on the front desk, but instead of taking a piece, leave a handful.  Secret Agent 00Sweet!

5. Give a handful to the child of the unfriendly mom who made a snide comment about your bathrobe at the bus stop.  Then repent, forgive, and…oh, come on, people, it’s a joke, lighten up!  It would be funny, though….

5. Make yourself a rule.  For example, you can eat a snack sized Twix only after you’ve done ten pushups and thirty sit-ups and jogged up and down the stairs twice.  Whatever balances you out calorie-wise so that your net intake is zero.

6. Human Piñata.  Fill all of your pockets with candy and go to a play date with your children, grandchildren, nieces/nephews.  Be the first ones to leave and as you walk past the children on the way to the door, “spill” the candy.  If you want to make a little show of it, put headphones in your ears and groove to the music; the extra shaking makes it more believable when Starbursts and Milk Duds leap from your jacket pocket.  Just be careful not to leave the room until you’re positive that your pockets are empty; you don’t want any unsupervised children following you home.

P10106897. Candy Filter Giveaway.  We’ve done this a few years in a row; it works great.  Trick or treating is generally 6-8pm, so we go out with our costumed kids and collect candy from 6-7pm.  We let the boys chose a piece of candy to eat and send them out onto the front porch while my husband and I quickly separate the chocolate from the non-chocolate candy.  The non-chocolate, with very few exceptions, goes into the bowl with the tracts to be given out to trick or treaters from 7-8pm.  (Why tracts?  Because if you come to my house and ask me to fill your bucket, I choose to give you something of value.  Candy rots your teeth for a day, but Christ saves for eternity.)  By 8pm the bowl is empty and we only have a little bit of chocolate to contend with using #5.

Prepare yourselves for battle, Dessert Snobs!  The victory is yours!

 “For the Lord takes delight in his people;
he crowns the humble with victory.
 Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor
and sing for joy on their beds.”

Psalm 149:4-5 NIV

Posted by . Categories: Interesting Tidbits. Tags: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

21

Oct. ’13

Slurp This, Not That

P1010196Not all soup is created equal.  That’s like saying all chocolate is the same.  I extol the merits of soup and its ability to help you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, but I feel the need to define “soup”.  To avoid confusion and – in the spirit of this blog – to keep a positive spin on things, we’ll call good, healthy, diet-friendly soup “sexy soup” to distinguish it from all the other “soups” out there that are worse for you than an Italian hoagie.  (Note: Italian hoagies are awesome BUT I don’t recommend eating them several times a week if you want to lose weight…unless you bike the five miles to and from the hoagie shop.)

Sexy Soup IS:

Mostly vegetables and water,

Going to maintain a liquid state in the fridge and not congeal into some sort of glop,

Less than 150 calories per 1 cup serving,

Tastes so good your kids will eat it.

2013 october 010Cream of Broccoli Soup, for example, is not Sexy Soup.  If you remove the water, it’s really a block of cheese with one stem of broccoli added for color.  Have you ever seen it when it’s cold?  It’s Jello.   But if you love cheese Jello like I do, then try this trick: Cook a bunch of broccoli and mix it in, about half soup and half broccoli (and water if you need to thin it out a bit).  It won’t be quite as thick as the original, but at least it won’t be misleading to keep the word “broccoli” in the title anymore, and you’ll have calcium oozing out of your pores.2013 october 015

Canned soup is convenient, but it’s not Sexy.  Some of the soup companies have created healthy lines of soup: “100% Natural”, “Light”, “Heart Healthy” and so forth.  Not a bad idea, and these soups are on track calorie-wise, but each ONE cup serving gives you about 700 mg of sodium.  That’s 30% of the sodium you should consume in an entire day.  If they have less sodium, they add more sugar, as much as 3 teaspoons in a ONE cup serving.  I don’t add that much sugar to my coffee, and I like it sweet!

Let’s not forget the main reason we love soup: it’s a warm, comforting, delicious way to eat lots of vegetables.  Most canned soups don’t give you a lot of veggies; you usually get what you see on the label’s picture…a whole three carrot slices per can.

How do you make Sexy Soup that’s satisfying and rich without adding loads of dairy, salt, or sugar?  The trick is to make the water feel like not-water in your mouth.

Option one: when the soup is cooked, pour half of it into a blender and blend it, then return it to the pot.  Your “broth” is creamy, but there’s something left to chew.  Note: this is a great way to get veggies into kids; if they pick out the carrots they can see, they still slurp down the ones they can’t.

2013 october 014Option two: add purees.  Don’t pitch your decorative pumpkins!  Did you know that pumpkins were a vegetable before they were décor?  You can eat them!  Not after you carve them, light a candle in them, and leave them on the doorstep for a month, no, but even in November and December, an unopened pumpkin can be cooked and consumed.  Bake or microwave it, scoop out the now soft insides (not the seeds), puree it in a blender, and freeze it in little ziploc baggies to add to soups.  Purees of cauliflower, yellow summer squash, and carrot also work for Sexy Soup.2013 october 012

Option three: add potatoes or rice.  Potatoes and rice tend to thicken a broth when simmered for a while.  Just make sure most of the soup is made up of colorful plants.

Option four: cheese or milk.  If you add dairy, follow the Rule of Thumb for your veggie:fat ratio.  One thumb of fat/dairy per one hand of veggies.  Choose a strong cheese that you can taste; if a mild flavored cheese blends in too well, you may as well leave it out.

Option five: blend all of the soup and pour it into a large plastic martini glass.  Put on sunglasses, heels, and lip stick, then sit by a pool and sip it through a straw.  Sexy is as sexy eats!

“Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.” Daniel 1:12

Posted by . Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: , , , , , , , . 4 Comments